Peres’ vision of peace burns brightly in his granddaughter

Mika Almog, the granddaughter of former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, is determined to champion hope in an Israel fraught with despair. Despite widespread scepticism among Israelis and Palestinians about the possibility of an alternative, Almog refuses to succumb to cynicism.

“Four years after the devastating Yom Kippur War, a peace agreement was reached with Egypt,” she reflects. “History is full of unexpected turns. While the end of suffering and bereavement feels distant now, history shows us that when wars end — peace is inevitable.”

A mother of three teenagers aged 14, 17 and 19, Almog has dedicated herself to advancing the vision of coexistence her grandfather championed through working for It’s Time, an umbrella coalition of 50 peacebuilding organisations that strives to galvanise Israelis and Palestinians around a shared vision of security and self-determination. Almog is Content Director for the coalition, in which she oversees the panels, speakers, music and entertainment of their mass peace events.

When asked about the Oslo Accords her grandfather initiated, which have been widely criticised as a failure, Almog said: “Oslo was meant to be a process that would lead to peace, yet temporary arrangements such as the creation of Areas A, B and C in the West Bank that were meant to last five years have been in place for 30 years.

“Add to that the assassination of Rabin and the terror of Hamas, the problem of Oslo wasn’t the idea; it was the implementation. Yet failure shouldn’t mean we give up. Just as medical scientists have tried and failed hundreds of times to cure Alzheimer's, so we must continue to try and make peace until we succeed. The essence of progress is trying to achieve impossible things.”